50 Questions: 31-40

31.Â At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive? This week? Watching hawks wheel. Running with the sun on my skin. Curling up quietly.

32. If not now, then when? Is this in relation to the last question, or is this a cosmic vagary?Â If the former: not now, but quite recently.Â It depends on who I’m with, it depends on where I am.

If it’s a question in general, then the answer is “soon”. Not always as soon as I want, not always when I expect, but generally things happen soon enough.

33.Â If you havenâ€™t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?Â Again, I have no idea if this is still relating back or not. These questions are making me feel like I have very poor reading comprehension.

But if you’re asking whether I haven’t achieved passionate-and-alive-feeling yet? I have. I do. I plan to.

If you’re asking in general – for the things I haven’t achieved, what do I have to lose? Mostly it’s that I’m afraid of failing. Sometimes the idea of failing again is just scarier than not trying. I’m not saying that’s right – I was reminded that it isn’t just yesterday, actually.

34. Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever? No. That’s dumb. You can have wonderful moments of silence with people you love, but the whole idea of “oooh, we’re so close we don’t need to say anything” is just a setup for misunderstandings. Speak up. Scary but true.

35. Why do religions that support love cause so many wars? Because religions are built on a rock of faith and love, with a big structure of human rules and interpretations and goals grown up around them, and that structure has always been about a need for power as much as about a spiritual desire to worship.

But even when the structure isn’t right, it doesn’t mean the foundation’s no good.

36.Â Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil? I… don’t know. I want to say yes because absolutes can be comforting. I’m not sure if it really is, though.

37.Â If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job? No. I’d pay off my debts and invest the rest for retirement. A million dollars doesn’t do what it used to.

38.Â Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing? Definitely the latter. Well. Within reason.

39.Â Do you feel like youâ€™ve lived this day a hundred times before? Ugh, what a terrible way to look at life. If that’s how you feel, you might as well stay in bed.

40.Â When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in? That sounds like something from a high-school literary magazine. I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean. Therefore: no.